The Palestinians of Israel are poised to take centre stage
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Seumas Milne - (Opinion) November 10, 2010 - 1:00am

In a quiet street in the Sheikh Jarrah district of occupied East Jerusalem 88-year-old Rifka al-Kurd is explaining how she came to live in the house she and her husband built as Palestinian refugees in the 1950s. As she speaks, three young ultra-orthodox Jewish settlers swagger in to stake their claim to the front part of the building, shouting abuse in Hebrew and broken Arabic: "Arab animals", "shut up, whore".

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Israel confronts flagging interest in military service
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Washington Post
by Janine Zacharia - November 7, 2010 - 12:00am

TEL HASHOMER, ISRAEL - Since Israel's founding, the military here has served not just as a defender against outside threats, but as the glue that brings together a patchwork nation of immigrants. Now, the Israel Defense Forces' position as the country's most venerated institution appears to be slipping. While service is compulsory for most young men and women, a growing minority is avoiding conscription, leaving planners to worry the military won't have the troops it says it needs.

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Window of opportunity for two-state solution closing, Hague warns Israel
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
by Harriet Sherwood - November 5, 2010 - 12:00am

William Hague warned today that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was closing and failure by the two parties to reach agreement would be a "serious setback". Speaking at the end of a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, after visiting Jerusalem's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, the foreign secretary urged Israel to renew its freeze on settlement construction to allow direct talks between the two parties to resume.

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Haaretz exposé / State gave East Jerusalem lands to rightist groups without tenders
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Nir Hasson - November 5, 2010 - 12:00am

The Israel Lands Administration is transferring properties in the Silwan neighborhood and the Old City of Jerusalem to right-wing groups Elad and Ateret Cohanim for low prices, without issuing a tender as required by law, a Haaretz investigation has found. The state and the groups involved concealed the transactions and refused to give any information about them. At the end of a lengthy legal struggle conducted by left-wing activist Dror Etkes, the court decided to have the ILA release only part of the information, to prevent the properties' identification.

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Israel sets to grant civil marriages
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from
November 4, 2010 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli government plans to begin granting marriage licences for non-Jews and others officially defined as not belonging to a particular religious denomination. Some 300,000 such couples, which have up to now had to travel overseas to marry in civil ceremonies, often to nearby Cyprus, will be able to officially wed without the Chief Rabbinate's approval, possibly by the weekend, Israel army radio reported Wednesday.

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News Analysis: New US Congress affects Obama's Middle East policy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by Adam Gonn - November 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Early results of the U.S. midterm elections indicate President Barack Obama's Democrats have lost control of the House of Representatives and the Republican Party has increased its presence in the Senate, which may affect Obama's role as a peace broker in the Middle East. When Obama convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year to impose a ten-month freeze on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank so that the peace process could be resumed, hopes were high that it could lead to a breakthrough.

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News Analysis: New US Congress affects Obama's Middle East policy
Media Mention of ATFP In Xinhua - November 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Early results of the U.S. midterm elections indicate President Barack Obama's Democrats have lost control of the House of Representatives and the Republican Party has increased its presence in the Senate, which may affect Obama's role as a peace broker in the Middle East. When Obama convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year to impose a ten-month freeze on construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank so that the peace process could be resumed, hopes were high that it could lead to a breakthrough.

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Did Rabin assassination mark decline of Israel's peace camp?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Joshua Mitnick - November 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination 15 years ago at the peak of Israel's pro-peace movement now appears to have heralded the beginning of a long, slow decline for an Israeli left that is in danger of fading into irrelevance.

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UK: Israeli officials shouldn't fear arrest
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Ian Deitch - November 4, 2010 - 12:00am

Israeli officials should not fear arrest warrants initiated by pro-Palestinian activists when they travel to Britain on official business, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday. Hague's comments sought to reassure Israeli leaders after they suspended an annual strategic meeting in Britain last month due to fears they could be arrested under the principle of "universal jurisdiction." Pro-Palestinian activists in Britain have sought the arrest of Israeli officials under the principle, which allows courts to prosecute alleged war crimes from elsewhere in the world.

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Deputy FM: Israel won't cooperate with UNESCO
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
November 3, 2010 - 12:00am

"Israel has no intention of cooperating with UNESCO," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the Knesset on Wednesday in response to the world culture organization's decision to characterize the site of Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim mosque. "We should see the organization's call to remove the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb from the list of Israel's national sites as part of Palestinian escalation in international organizations," he said.

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